March 23rd 1967
(A note about the frailty of old age)
"Until the dawn breaks and the shadows flee." This life to so many who are aged, becomes, as it were, all night.
There seems no brightness, no light, no so-called pleasure, for the body becomes feeble, the mind also, and they long for the end of the night. And so many know not when the dawn will break, if it will ever break. And in their old age they sit and think, and they look through eyes which are dimmed with age, and see only the physical objects around them, blurred through their own vision. And we are sad to witness such things.
And you may be able to feel the great joy which fills our hearts when we see an aged person, one whose body has become feeble, one who has to sit and stare, because even reading at such times can be too difficult, but the difference in the aura of one who knows, of one who has sought and found, although we are profoundly sorry for the inability of the body to move and do as it will, the freedom of the Spirit is limitless.
And by just sitting, and bringing oneself up, as it were, through thought and prayer to a higher spiritual vibration. The Spirit is free to roam, free to serve, free to do. And we would have you remember this, when you feel that you are helpless, that you are doing nothing, and that the time has come when you are but a burden, when you dread the so-called nuisance that you may be, we want you to know that as you sit in the silence, and as you look at your fire, with all the familiar things around you which are steeped in your own so-called vibrations, we want you to know that you are invaluable to us.
There are so many of your age around you, sitting in the various homesteads, who resemble to us but as a dark shadow, there is no light, only the dark aura of fear of the unknown. And they cling to every straw of physical life. They dread the inevitable future, which looms in front of them like a black, relentless, cloud, with no light, no hope. And this saddens us. Because there is light and there is hope for each and every one. That which they perpetually dread is not there to dread. It doesn't exist. For in every human life there is some reward at the end. Every one deserves something, everyone has built up something except the very, very ignorant, and the very, very, evil, and these are very few and far between.
And so, Mary, again we remind you of the pearl, of the gem, of your treasure. And we say that all is light around you. Even when you feel so despondent with the everyday trials, and we ask you again and again, not to be afraid. For you send out into the ether a glowing light which we use to the very best of our ability to help others. And if one of these poor, deluded souls, sitting in the blackness of their own fear, has but a thought of God, a thought of love, and asks but a simple question, "What is in front. I'm sure there must be something." That is enough for us to take that which emanates from you, because it is physical.
Although we cannot explain in any other way, words are inadequate, but we can take something of you, from your mind, and from your Earthly body, and we can use this something as one would use a torch in a dark place. And we can enlarge upon this thought which is in the mind of this soul, and throw a certain amount of light.
Now this is very difficult for you to understand, but it is true. It is a sort of power which we can use from one human being to another. We have the greater light, we have the greater power, we have wonderful rays the power of which you could not understand. But we have outworn this certain something, we have gone so far away from this certain something which belongs to the physical, and this is why we depend upon the so-called agents of the angels.
And so we went you to make more and more of the time when you are able to sit, when you can sit say to yourself, "Now, in my peace, in my happiness, in my faith, in my trust in God, Christ, ministering angels, my own spiritual friends, I will think on happy things, I will pray here and there. I will give out what I have got."
Not a deep concentration, but a true and grateful thank-fulness, for the knowledge, for the light, and for the gift of courage, and insight which has been granted to you, which you have used to search. You are never alone. There is always someone waiting to take from you this certain something, this power, and to use it for the benefit of those who are beginning to think and to wonder and to ask when and why and how.
Mary, you have never been of any greater value than you are now. Even when you went from this person to that, using up your energy, your skill, your knowledge, taking away the pain through sheer hard work, with your hands, brain, mind, and body, you did no more, not as much, as you do now.
But all this was training and a building up of power, end as you sit with all this behind you, with this great storehouse of knowledge, and insight and faith, there are they who come and take it to those who you would gladly help. Some you have never seen, some you have never known, and yet, they benefit.
Can you see the difference between an aged person who knows, and an aged person who does not? All we can see is, as it were, when we are dealing with the enlightened, with the seeker, with the server of the most high, is an old garment, wrapped around, as it were, a child, full of light, full of love, full of energy, full of hope, full of faith, full of trust, full of beauty, but the coat, the old coat for a very short time is so tightly fastened that it just cannot nip out and do all those things that it would do. Will you think of this illustration, when you sit over this blessed Eastertide, and just wait until those old buttons burst, and with perfect body, perfect health, with knowledge, what will you do? Everything is before you, Mary, is golden. The real springtime of reality, of real life, Mary, is before you.
This transcript addresses the particular grief of old age directly and without softening it — bodies grown feeble, minds dimmed, the sense of being a burden, "the difference between an aged person who knows, and an aged person who does not" drawn sharply against those who simply "dread the inevitable future, which looms... like a black, relentless cloud." What it offers instead isn't denial of that frailty but a reversal of its meaning: physical helplessness is shown to coexist with limitless spiritual freedom — the Spirit "free to roam, free to serve, free to do" precisely while the body sits motionless by the fire.
The transcript's most striking claim is practical rather than consoling: someone simply sitting quietly, at peace, faithful, is described as functioning as a kind of relay station — "we can take something of you... and use this something as one would use a torch in a dark place" — reaching other frightened, doubting souls who never meet Mary and never know her name. Stillness, on this account, is not diminished usefulness but a different, and in this case greater, form of it: "you have never been of any greater value than you are now," more than during the years of active medical work, because everything gathered then has become "a storehouse" others can now draw from.
Its closing image is the gentlest in the whole passage: age as an old coat, tightly fastened for now around someone "full of light, full of love, full of energy" — not the person diminishing, but simply constrained a little longer, until, as the transcript puts it, "those old buttons burst." This is close to Paul's own image in 2 Corinthians 4:16 — "though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day" — the same insistence that decline in the visible is entirely compatible with, and no argument against, growth in what actually lasts.